Thursday, December 31, 2009
6:09 PM
Simple Inspiration
*not the actual poster though it is the actual inspirational phrase. My copy of the poster succumbed to wear and tear several years ago and as far as I know, it can no longer be found for purchase anywhere.
High school choir was almost everything to me. I knew, early on, that I wanted to pursue a degree and career in vocal music so all of my choir classes were naturally my favorites. That's where I most succeeded, where I was most challenged, and where I most felt as though I belonged. My passion for all things music was profound and I immersed myself into all things relating to this love of mine. I was a regular at the local Hallmark store because they carried beautiful posters that often contained messages about reaching for your dreams and the instrinsic spirituality of music. My bedroom walls were covered with inspirational mantra and I was head-over-heels in love and intoxicated by the beauty that was the possibility of bringing my lofty dreams to fruition. I latched onto every piece of encouragement I could find because I knew I was going to need it. I didn't come from a highly-educated family. In fact, I was to be the first in my immediate family line to attend college. I had no money and no idea where I might get enough to cover my college education. My parents, because they didn't understand, and because they had no college money to offer, were completely against the idea of me attempting to obtain an education beyond high school. (Neither they nor my brother even got that far) I knew the road was going to be very tough but I was blindly determined to win against all odds. So if there was a song, poem, poster message, book, movie, show, magazine article, or person who was willing to invest even the slightest bit of belief in my dream, I grabbed onto it/them with everything I had. I was the ultimate dreamer.
Of all the inspirational posters I owned, there was none more spiritually moving to me than the one that hung in our Concert Choir classroom. Just reading it often moved me to tears. I read it every single day as I both entered and exited Choir rehearsal. I took the words printed on that cheap little poster and emblazoned them upon my heart, where they remain today.
"Those who wish to sing, always find a song."
Laugh if you will, but those words were/are profound to this dreamer's heart. I loved that poster immensely and I wanted one but RS didn't remember where he got it so all attempts on my part of locate one proved to be in vain.
That is, until my senior year, when I happened upon one while browsing through some random catalog that my mom got in the mail. Had you been there the day I found my coveted poster, you would have thought that I had found some great and grand, expensive treasure, rather than a $2 poster. But that $2 poster WAS a great and grand treasure to me and I talked my mom into giving me the money, an envelope, and a stamp immediately.
My poster FINALLY arrived about 4 or 5 weeks later (that was pre-internet shopping days when snail mail dictated that all orders take forfreakingever). It hung on my bedroom wall, it hung on all of my dorm room walls, and it hung on my classroom wall the first year that I taught school.
Back home.
As a faculty member/choir director of the very same school/school system I was attending, when my beautiful, bittersweet dream was born.
The "bittersweet" part of the story is a tale for another day.